7 ms·
I am coming to believe that what we are seeing is a kind of "race" to see which aspiring superpowers will eventually control (or own) the main companies that ar
by pryce 6y ago
I am coming to believe that what we are seeing is a kind of "race" to see which aspiring superpowers will eventually control (or own) the main companies that are intentionally the most successful in invading the privacy of citizens.
People can only inhabit a finite number of social media networks, and there can eventually only be a fairly small number of big players in a position to produce massively detailed rich profiles on individuals and therefore hold most influence on them (consumer behaviour & voting behaviour)
Imagine that the USA clamps down heavily on facebook, and in 4 years some rival company from Russia or China ended up achieving the largest market share / richest per-person psych profiles. That represents a security threat even greater than the (nearly catastrophic) threat that Facebook represents today. Who wins and who loses in this race is going to make a massive difference in what the planet looks like 20, 10, even 5 years from now.
- kolla 6y agoFeels more like companies own the aspiring superpowers with all the lobbying going around in the US.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- smolder 6y agoThe government was supposed to represent people, but since we made corruption legal, its mainly accountable to money. Corporations and the government alike are therefore controlled by those with wealth and intent. They're two sides of the same coin.
- Tarq0n 6y agoThere's definitely an element of this at play. This was stated pretty explicitly in the case of Grindr, a dating app for gay men. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/grindr-china-national-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/grindr-china-...
- throwawayinfo 6y agoEh... in some parts of the US there is still a stigma against being LGBT. Grindr being foreign owned means opening up the possibility of people (who aren't ready to come out) being blackmailed. And that's clearly a national security threat and different from wanting data profiles on everyone.
- bwb 6y agoIn some ways it is kinda funny in a dark way, as our inability to accept people for how they are is a national security threat :).
- YinglingLight 6y agoYou don't get to the upper eschelon of power without Those even higher up having you blackmailed hook, line, and sinker. Ignore the below: 动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺
- kube-system 6y agoAmericans, especially the ones a foreign power would be interested in blackmailing, also travel. In some ~70 countries, homosexuality is a crime.
- dahfizz 6y ago> that's clearly a national security threat and different from wanting data profiles on everyone. What's the threat model here? Certainly ousting LGBT people is scummy, but I'm not sure I understand how it jeopardizes the security of the nation. You could argue that the ability to blackmail government officials compromises national security, but lots of things in that "data profile" could be used for blackmail. I don't see a reason to break this issue out separately.
- dkn775 6y agoI would imagine that if someone is hiding some use of the Grindr app from their S/O, they can be blackmailed. It would be particularly evident due to the location and photo-based tenants of the service. That is exactly why they ask the questions they do on the counterintelligence polygraph
- FpUser 6y agoOr maybe one day people will realize that there is a life beyond the friggin' social networks. They have their uses but the degree to which people depend on them is not very healthy.
- Dirlewanger 6y agoSounds like a new Cold War that is becoming truer every day, where the proxy countries are instead companies.